Eastern Tennessee Children's Hospital is one of the most amazing children's hospital in the country. Not only do they care for a variety of pediatric illnesses and needs, but they have a super special NICU.

The reason their NICU is so special is because they are one of the hospitals that treat the highest number of drug-dependent newborns in the United States. And we aren't talking street or illegal drugs...these are prescription pain medications and most obtained under normal circumstance.

These babies are weaned off prescription medication, by being given doses of morphine until they are able to tolerate being completely off any kind of opiate. This process can take days and week to accomplish. The unit can hold 49 infants and over half of them are born with neonate abstinence syndrome (drug-dependent), these babies have to be watched around the clock for seizures and even worse, in case they stop breathing.

When I was in college, this was a topic I was starting to write a research paper on...it is a personal subject as my youngest was born drug-dependent and not because I misused my pain medication, but because I was given excessive amounts of pain medication between all of our admission during pregnancy for pre-term labor and for the amount of pain I was in throughout the entire pregnancy because of the amount of scar tissue I had and two pregnancies very close together and severe anemia issues as well.

Only problem was, when she was born, we didn't know what was the cause of all the problems we had in the first two months of her life, until I happened to read a forum on drug-dependent babies and all the pieces fell into place. It was scary.

Ellen sent out socks and hair bows and in her awesomeness asked if we had any gowns that we could send their way as well. I had to wait until I got back to the house and went through what we already had sewn NICU Smock wise and put together a box that we will be sending out the the hospital this Monday.

So in total we have twenty-eight gowns headed to the hospital's volunteer services and some of our brochures to be used throughout the hospital for other children that may want a gown of their own as well.

We will keep praying for the hospital's staff and volunteers that are working with and caring for these precious babies and their families. We pray for the babies and their families as well through this rocky start to their journey and lives.

We hope these gowns find each little doing the best they can and provide them with a little extra comfort.

Clicking on the picture above will take you to a brochure (PDF Format) the hospital has created on Drug Use during Pregnancy and about Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome.